Court papers: Nuclear feud at Fla. plant

[bananas]

Source: UPI

HOMESTEAD, Fla., March 12 (UPI) -- Florida Power & Light Co. regularly puts costs savings ahead of safety, a top nuclear plant operator said in resigning from the Florida utility.

The utility denied the charges laid by David Hoffman, who resigned Feb. 26, 2008, after being ordered by FPL executives to put two reactors at the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station near Homestead, Fla., back online within 12 hours of an automatic shutdown triggered by a utility worker's blunder.

Hoffman had told the executives putting the reactors back online so soon would be dangerous, considering all the systems that needed to be checked, he wrote in a resignation letter.

<snip>

Bringing a reactor back online after 10 or 11 hours "is really asking for trouble," University of California, Berkeley, nuclear engineering professor E.C. Morse told the newspaper.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/12/Court_papers_Nuclear_feud_at_Fla_plant/UPI-18051236894387/

[cosmicone]

1. Seems like

we have Chernobyl trained executives at FPL.

[bananas]

2. Longer article with court documents

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/front-page/v-fullstory/story/945615.html

Court papers reveal nuclear feud at Turkey Point
The top nuclear operator at Turkey Point resigned after a huge outage because he felt his bosses were demanding an unsafe restart.

BY JOHN DORSCHNER
[e-mail]

At 1:09 one afternoon last year, 90 metal rods slid into the cores of the two nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, part of an automatic shutdown that had been triggered by a utility worker's blunder moments earlier at a substation miles away. A million customers lost power.

Florida Power & Light executives ordered that the reactors be back online within 12 hours, according to court documents. The plant's top nuclear operator, David Hoffman, said that would be dangerous. When FPL executives disagreed with him, he walked out at 8 p.m., refusing to participate in actions he felt were unsafe.

At 11:49 that night, Feb. 26, 2008, he submitted a heated resignation letter, blasting FPL for constantly putting cost savings ahead of safety and creating a horrible morale problem. ''People are not valued and are treated like equipment and numbers,'' Hoffman wrote.

Hoffman's charge offers a rare insight into safety complaints made by nuclear workers, who are often forbidden by contract from saying anything negative about their bosses. The information came to light because FPL is suing him for the return of a bonus, and he's charging in a countersuit that the utility is improperly trying to

<snip>

Related Content

* Hoffman's resignation letter
* Read the Hoffman Court Documents
* At heart of Turkey Plant workers' unrest: overtime
* Amid nuclear worker shortage, FPL says it's following rules
* Silence clause aims to keep Turkey Point workers quiet
* Amended complaint by 20 Turkey Point nuclear operators that the company is cheating them on overtime pay
* FPL's response to nuclear workers complaint about overtime
* Bonus program for turkey point operators
* Another bonus program for nuclear operators at Turkey Point

[Grinchie]

3. And I thought that posting reminders of Three Mile Island anniversary would be adequate

Or maybe Chernobyl, or maybe l link to "Experiment Animals", but I think the industry will take care of itself.

We were much smarter 30 years ago. I doubt that todays americans can ever build a 100% safe nuclear power plant based on designs that basically scale up a Power Plant for a Nuclear Sub, generating 60 Kilowatts to the behemoths we see at 100 megawats. Energy at that scale has proven to be unpredictable, and in some cases, uncontrollable.

Show me a bunch of vaproized plutonium spilled all over the desert and demonstrate it can be cleaned up. Thats the driving issue..

[pmorlan1]

4. Scary, Scary Story

Thanks for posting the link to this excellent story. I would encourage everyone to read the Miami-Herald story not just the UPI story. The Herald really did a great job.

[Wizard777]

5. Bring in the IAEA.

[ensho]

6. kicking

nt